This is a true story from several years back. . .
As my August birthday approached I saw a movie inside my mind, starring me, driving across the desert from California to Denver to visit my sister. Along the way I was stopping at Moab, Utah, and hiking into a place where there are some powerful petroglyphs of snake shamans and probable space visitors. In my vision I got up early in the morning and meditated at this ceremonial power spot, receiving important guidance about who I was to become and what I was to do in the next part of my life. The sacred nature of the place, and my desire to make my fiftieth a meaningful turning point, excited me and I picked up the phone immediately to make arrangements with my sister.
I set off on my sacred pilgrimage, anxious to have the special rite of passage that surely was awaiting me down the road. Within hours, in Nevada, I encountered numerous large wildfires blackening the sky. Traffic was backed up for miles in the sweltering heat as emergency crews moved heavy equipment down the highway. After that, my car's cooling system began to behave strangely, and I wondered if I'd make it to Colorado. Further on, in western Utah, I got a speeding ticket from a disturbingly unfriendly female ranger for going 25 in a 15 mph zone in a national park. What was all this resistance?
I felt like I was driving into a forcefield that had its magnetic poles reversed. Eventually, I reached Moab, spent a buzzy night in a crowded motel, rose at dawn, and made my way to the petroglyphs outside of town, preparing mentally for my sacred experience. When I arrived at 7am, the place was crawling with loud-mouthed, camera-toting tourists! So much for my sacred space. I tried waiting for them to leave, but more kept arriving.
Off the Road but On the Path!
On impulse I decided to drive past a no trespassing sign up a dirt road into the Ute reservation. Maybe there'd be a place back there, if I didn't get shot finding it. Two miles, four miles, and there was nowhere to stop. Nothing was looking sacred to me. I felt no power spots. Six miles, eight miles, and finally ten miles down the increasingly rocky road, I found a moist wash leading up into a large sandstone formation. There was energy there! I pulled off-road and began to hike.
Through the scratchy brush and into a narrow canyon, through eroded openings in the stone that looked like a birth canal, I pushed my way up against the flow. Clambering over large boulders, I climbed higher. And then I saw a spot — a narrow ledge in the wall of the canyon, and yes — I could climb up to it. Struggling up a steep incline, over rocks that had broken away from the canyon wall in years past, I made it, sweating and breathing heavily, and found my spot. Leaning against the canyon wall, eyes closed, I quieted my breathing, centered myself, and tried to calm my jumping mind, which was overstimulated from the chaotic journey. At last — it was time! Ahh, I was almost still. . . And then, as if on cue, the sun rose over the rim of the canyon and shone directly on me. And with the newfound warmth came a squadron of marauding, flying insects — biting deerflies, huge dive-bombing beelike creatures, and yellowjackets. I blew out a long breath, rolled my eyes, and decided, "This just ain't my day!"
I stood, brushed off the twigs, consoled myself with some inane platitude, and started back down the cliff. It looked much steeper going down than it had ascending. Stabilizing myself by holding onto a tiny pinyon tree, I stepped down onto a boulder the size of an overstuffed armchair, and — it gave way! Avalanche!! I fell down the side of the cliff with the thundering, crashing rocks, blessing the hardy little tree, which held its grip on the earth in spite of the commotion I caused. When I found my footing, caught my breath, and stilled my heart, I realized "I could be dead right now, crushed in this canyon miles from civilization — and no one knows where I am. Whoa!" Sobered and deflated, I drove back to the highway and unceremoniously made my way to the suburbs of Denver.
There, in a haze of air pollution, amidst the endless stretches of new homes marching across the plains, I was prepared to "make do" and have the best time I possibly could — though certainly it wouldn't be "sacred." What ensued shocked me. A charmed flow of events began to unfold; friends and family expressed love with many simple and wonderful gestures, and I felt suddenly and inexplicably motivated to support my sister unconditionally in a wordless way I had never experienced, a way that was filled with true generosity.
Though it was "my time" to receive, something in me felt like giving instead. It wasn't the giving of gifts, but of spirit, and it was done through a sequence of ordinary events. I couldn't stop the flow, and the love swelled and became palpable. And it changed the basic relationship I had with my sister, deepening our connection and erasing past cautions and judgments. As I drove home, back across the long stretch of desert, I was different. I felt released into the world as though propelled from a slingshot, the forcefield magnets now drawing me forward instead of repelling me.
Spiritual Gifts Come When the Time is “Just Right”
It dawned on me as I drove, how what I had expected to come in such a pretentious way had been given to me right in the midst of our often messy, daily life; that the experience of soul I hungered for had shown up without much ado, not on a sacred mountaintop, but in suburbia, not in a special ceremony, but precipitated by a simple decision to give love without needing anything in return. As I drove, I started to hum "Teach Me Tonight," and when I caught myself, I just smiled because the lyrics tell us: “Graduation's almost here, my Love. . .”
I suddenly knew that the moment I stepped onto that boulder and the solid earth gave way, that's when the old foundations of my life collapsed as well. The rules of my reality could now be different. I had fallen into the world. I, the soul, now occupied myself and had embodied into the entire physical plane. I felt like I was everywhere. It was my love, soul love, that had shown me how easy it was to transform the world—from within the world—through the power of Presence. I didn't need a vision about my future; I was so totally in the now, I knew everything I needed would come with an ease only the soul is capable of materializing.
(See my other piece called “Graduation’s Almost Here, My Love. . .”)
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